


Punishments

by aravenwood



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo '18-20 [11]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Broken Bones, Gen, Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Whump, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:28:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood
Summary: Nicky remembered the first time he was tortured. He’d been young, too young – barely 50 years old, immortal for less than 25.Written for the Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt "cold-blooded torture".
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo '18-20 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892221
Kudos: 81





	Punishments

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! More Nicky whump, my poor boy.
> 
> Enjoy!

Nicky remembered the first time he was tortured. He’d been young, too young – barely 50 years old, immortal for less than 25. This was long before they were The Old Guard, when they were just two men trying to survive in a cruel, violent world. It was a case of wrong place, wrong time for Nicky – Nicolo, he’d been back then, when it was a name that drew little attention. He’d stumbled across a group of men being beaten by soldiers, and his mere presence had been enough to anger them. He still remembered the look in their eyes; the wildness, the animalistic hunger that sickened him to this day.

“You will pay for your intrusion,” one of them hissed and he was suddenly seized by arms and forced to the ground. The soldiers who held him went to the ground with him and pressed their hands into his chest and shoulders to keep him pinned. When he tried to kick out at them his ankles were grabbed and tied together with a length of rope.

“I saw nothing,” Nicolo spluttered, fear flooding his mind and chest. He struggled against the men but they only pressed harder, the heels of their hands digging painfully against his sternum.

One of the remaining soldiers crouched next to him and forced a cloth between his teeth and knotted it behind his head, pulling tightly until his lips were forced to part to avoid the corners being sliced. The soldier then straightened up and met Nicolo’s look of fear with a near-manic grin. “A new toy,” he said. “My turn first.”

His grin never wavering, he swung one foot back and slammed it down onto Nicolo’s chest, crushing several ribs with the force.

Nicolo screamed around his gag, body twisting and writhing in a desperate attempt to escape the assault. The soldier paid no heed and kicked him several more times, laughing at the audible cracks and snap of ribs beneath his boot. He managed to look disappointed when a kick was met with no snaps, and stepped back with a sigh. His hungry eyes looked Nicolo up and down, and he brightened once more as a thought crossed his mind.

With a wave of his hand, the soldier on Nicolo’s left side shifted his grip to stretch the captive limb out away from the rest of his body. He pressed hard into Nicolo’s wrist while the other man adjusted his own grip to the middle of the sternum, pressing down on a rib and drawing a fresh yell of pain from Nicolo’s lips.

The soldier who had broken all of Nicolo’s ribs grinned once more as he brought his foot down on Nicolo’s exposed forearm. Then again. And again. When bone pierced skin and Nicolo was near-delirious from pain, he forced the right arm out and repeated the process. By then Nicolo had no energy to whimper let alone scream, and lay limp beneath the soldiers with tears wetting his cheeks.

After his right arm was shattered beyond normal repair, memories grew blurry and unclear. His next clear memory was waking with his bones healed and Yusuf kneeling next to him with a bloodied sword next to him and the bodies of the soldiers surrounding them both. Even though he was healed and the men were dead, he buried his face in Yusuf’s chest and cried until he exhausted himself.

The soldier’s faces never left his mind, nor the sensation of his bones being crushed. They haunted his dreams, both waking and sleeping, the punishment he had endured simply for being there.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
